UTRA's Autonomous Rover Team (ART) attended the Robot Racing competition at the University of Windsor on Saturday, July 24th, 2010. The team arrived in the city of Windsor on Friday, July 23rd at 5:00 AM (five team members boarded the 1 AM Greyhound); talk about dedication! After a quick taxi ride through the small and humid city, the team quickly checked-in to the comfortable Alumni Hall and Conference Centre and immediately began working on their not-quite-ready autonomous mobile rover: Da Boss! While two members worked on the image detection as well as obstacle-avoidance algorithms for the AI of the robot, the other three members scrambled to get the motors of Da Boss working properly. After many hours of electrical and mechanical debugging, the team was unable to fix the electronic speed control (ESC). Due to unavailability of electrical components and the complexity of the ESC, the team abandoned hope of fixing the current ESC and set out to find a few chassis. Although the team had only 24 hours left to put together a new robot and get it following lanes and following traffic rules, ART did not give up!
After failing to find a suitable RC chassis, the team reverted to their most dire solution: using a relay to send bursts of power to Da Boss's motors. However, that required the motors to actually turn, which they weren’t. Luckily, after the second wave of the team arrived in Windsor, they were able to find a broken connection between the motors of the robot and the power source. The horrible grinding noise of the motors was received by an ecstatic cheer of the whole ART as hope renewed. After an all-nighter of electrical rewiring, soldering, and spontaneous redesigning, the team finally got Da Boss moving! As the software guys uploaded their algorithms to the robot, the team awaited, crossing their fingers. And lo-and-behold, we have success! Yay! The robot intelligently manoeuvres its way down the hallways of the hotel! Unfortunately, Da Boss's relays weren’t able to move the robot smoothly enough to give sufficient momentum to its steering servo. Also, the obstacle-avoidance algorithm did not predict the miniature size of the pylons. Rushed by time restrictions and too many last-minute challenges, the team was not able to reproduce Da Boss's spectacular performance in the hotel's hallways and thus, did not qualify for the competition. However, ART was rewarded by extremely valuable experience and knowledge from their trip to Windsor. With all the lessons learned and wisdom gained, the ART is looking for gold at the next Robot Racing competition!
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